Open Source Conquers Proprietary Software, Really?
May 19, 2015
Open source is an attractive option for organizations wanting to design their own software as well as saving money of proprietary licenses. ZDNet reports that “It’s An Open Source World-78 Percent of Companies Run Open Source Software”, but the adopters do not manage their open source systems very well. Every year Black Duck Software, an open source software logistics and legal solutions provider, and North Bridge, a seed to growth venture capital firm, run the Future of Open Source Survey. Organizations love open source, but
“Lou Shipley, Black Duck’s CEO, said in a statement, ‘In the results this year, it has become more evident that companies need their management and governance of open source to catch up to their usage. This is critical to reducing potential security, legal, and operational risks while allowing companies to reap the full benefits OSS provides.’”
The widespread adoption is due to people thinking that open source software is easier to scale, has fewer security problems, and much faster to deploy. Organizations, however, do not have a plan to manage open source, an automated code approval process, or have an inventory of open source components. Even worse is that they are unaware of the security vulnerabilities.
It is great that open source is being recognized as a more viable enterprise solution, but nobody knows how to use it.
Whitney Grace, April 19, 2015
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
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One Response to “Open Source Conquers Proprietary Software, Really?”
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An edited version of this statement is also true: “it has become more evident that companies need their management and governance of [software / software development] to catch up to their usage [/development]. This is critical to reducing potential security, legal, and operational risks while allowing companies to reap the full benefits [software / software development] provides.” Indeed for those organizations developing in-house proprietary software–even if only for internal infrastructure and operations, never as a product for sale–this has always been a significant responsibility.
In addition I think the current state of mind for those assessing open source technology is not that “open source software is *easier* to scale, has *fewer* security problems, and much *faster* to deploy,” but rather open source options are viable candidates that can compete on all those metrics. Remember it was not long ago that open source was dismissed outright as built by hobbyists in a basement somewhere.
Finally, it is also important to note that the type and level of involvement of organizations have with open source software (i.e. consumers vs. contributors) will determine how they mange their portfolios. Organizations that do not develop, modify, customize open source software will not need to “manage open source” code any differently than they have had to for their proprietary applications (poor practices are independent of licensing/development models). As they will not be contributing or pulling code, they will not need an automated code approval process, nor carry an inventory of open source components. The same administrative and managerial tasks used to provide continuity and consistency when consuming and implementing proprietary code can be used to manage and administer open source applications.
Implying that consuming open source is more laborious than consuming proprietary code, or developing open source software is more laborious than developing in-house proprietary code is a red herring often perpetuated by those with something to sell in the new and emerging market of open source software development.